Well, here it is. The comic I spent the better part of last week working on in fits and starts. DO YOU LOVE IT? IS IT EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED?

I fall into these unusual traps. Sometime I spend a lot of time working on a comic and while I'm in the middle of it think, "This is great! This is excellent!" I'm liking the poses, I'm liking the line work, I'm liking the shading and the coloring...

Then I lay down the dialogue, take a step back and think, "So that's it, then? That's all?"

Artists are their own worst critics, so I'm certain this is not a unique phenomenon. It just kind of sucks when you invest a large chunk of time into something, maintaining a certain level of excitement throughout the process and the minute you have a moment to step back from it, the end product isn't exactly what you envisioned.

I don't know. I think it's still a great panel. But it just kind of sits there. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself.

At any rate, I'm very much looking forward not to include fire effects in these comics again anytime soon. And I have a joke in mind for next week's comic - a nice visual gag. I'm confident it will work.